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Posts tagged ‘dessert’

★ Easy to make and even easier to eat. This chocolate ice-cream is a good substitute for those who miss it, or just want something that they can make at home to avoid the commercial products (which require a science degree to understand the ingredients list).

This recipe does not require an ice-cream machine. All measurements are rough-guides, adjust for taste.

This chocolate ice-cream stays smooth when frozen, does not form ice-crystals, and if left in a serving bowl too long melts into a tasty chocolate milk drink

Chocolate is the first luxury. It has so many things wrapped up in it: deliciousness in the moment, childhood memories, and that grin-inducing feeling of getting a reward for being good.Mariska Hargitay

Scones are a traditional English favourite, (similar to what is known in the USA as biscuits) often eaten warm with lashings of butter or cold with cream and jam.

This simple recipe is a vegan version, fast to make and fast to cook. The use of brown sugar rather than white, and dates gives a slightly caramel taste.Ingredients
3 cups of self raising flour
80 grams vegan margarine
brown sugar (non bone char)
1/2-3/4 cup soy milk, or other plant milk

1/4 cup dried dates, chopped and soaked in a little hot water for 10 minutes

Preparation
Preheat the oven to 180°C (350°F)

In a large mixing bowl add the flour, well sifted.
Add sugar, depending on taste. Stir through.
Add the dates, reserve the liquid. Mix well.

Add milk to the reserved date soaking water, until it reaches half a cup. Add to the flour mix and combine.

The dough should not be sticky to touch. If the mix is too dry add more milk, a tablespoon at a time.

When combined, roll the dough out on a floured board and break out small balls of dough. (Or leave in the mixing bowl and scoop them out)

Place these on a greased baking tray.

Bake for 10 minutes or until brown and a wooden toothpick comes up clean.

This is the recipe that got my boyfriend to go vegan. What made him take the final step from not caring what he ate to someone who wants to live a vegan life (and does, he is doing very well at it).

What makes that click varies between people, it might be seeing a piece of meat on a plate and thinking “that used to be a living creature” to a desire to change the world. It was eating these muffins that produced the click, he said “I get it now” and is now vegan.

This story came to mind recently, when I got into a discussion with my boyfriend about “how vegan is too vegan”. Does there come a point where you are avoiding too many things in ‘just in case’ that you cease to be a productive member of society. (Tyres of vehicles contain animal products, so do you walk everywhere, and what if trains and buses have leather seats? And what about rodents and insects that die when crops are harvested, do you only eat food you grow yourself. Books, may have animal products in the ink or the binding glue, does it still count if you borrow the book from a friend or library?)

Neither of us are big sugar eaters, but the issue of sugar does come up occasionally, and do we eat it.

It is something that I find interesting there are vegans (or “vegans”) who eat honey and think nothing of it (and no, honey is not vegan), and then there are other vegans who avoid sugar.

Sugar in itself is a vegan product. It is produced from the juice of sugar cane. It is the refining process which can in some instances make it not a vegan product. Some companies use bone-char to refine and bleach their sugar, this applies to white and brown sugar.

In the USA, the Sugar Association, and some of their largest sugar producers claim that the bone-char is from “cows have died of natural causes“… If you say so.

This might be the reason why people think vegans don’t eat dessert, or it might be they think vegan is a weight-loss diet, who knows. I know vegans who say they are often served fresh fruit as a dessert while everyone else eats delicious creamy, sugary concoctions, and know they are missing out. On the other hand, being served fresh fruit, you know what you are getting, and not taking the risk of someone assuring you that the cake they made is vegan and what they mean is it contains “free-range organic eggs” (yes, Judy Davie “Founder of The Food Coach”, I am talking about you).

Is there such thing as a perfect vegan? Or is it a case of trying each day to reduce the suffering in the world. And to never stop trying, in our own lives and in the world.

Preheat the over to 180C (less for fan-forced: 160C).
Mash the ripe bananas til very soft, almost liquid. Mix with the milk.
Mix four and sugar in a large bowl. Add the milk mixture.
Stir til just combined. Do not over mix or will lose it airiness.
Pour into greased muffin tray.
Bake for 20 minutes or until a wooden toothpick comes out clean.

Mix the cornflower into the milk until it is blended.
Melt the sugar and margarine, over a low heat in a small saucepan. Quantity depending on desired level of sweetness, for every tablespoon of sugar add a tablespoon of margarine. Do not allow to burn.
Slowly add the milk mixture. Stir continually. Should thicken and go sticky depending on the heat. If not, add more cornflour, blended with a little milk til dissolved. Stir through well.

(Also makes a good frosting/filling for cakes)

Toffee
200g caster sugar
12 tablespoons water
8 teaspoons lemon juice

Melt the sugar, water and lemon juice on low heat in a heavy based saucepan until fully dissolved.
Turn up the heat to high and watch constantly. After about 5 minutes, it should turn caramel. Thicken and darken.
Turn heat down to very low, enough to keep the caramel liquid but stop it turning more brown. Be very careful, the caramel is very, very hot and you can burn yourself very easily. It will cool within minutes.

Take two forks and cooling the toffee slightly, make strands by dipping them into the toffee and making circular motions around the muffin. The strands cool and harden. If strands do not occur then the toffee needs to cool a little further. If it cools too quickly, keep it on the stove on very low so that it can be reheated if the toffee sets too hard while you are spinning it.

Assemble
Make the muffins, and either split open or smother the outside with the caramel sauce, decorate with pecans optional. Then swirl over strands of toffee.

Preparation:
Pre-blend or grind (eg: in a coffee blender) the chocolate beans if desired for a smoother texture.

Opening up 1 or 2 baby coconuts, as shown in the video, they are soft white husked coconuts. Make cuts to the top of the coconut, until the top comes off.

Pour off the coconut water (milk) that is inside, into a separate container. Depending on the size of the coconut, one maybe, two coconuts are required to make 1 cup of water.

Take a large spoon, and scrape out the soft coconut flesh (meat) from inside the shell. Now take a spoon and scoop out the soft baby coconut meat from inside the coconut. Remove any shell that sticks, do that until there is about 2/1/2 cups of flesh.

Rock cakes
These are very easy to make and cook, can be adjusted on taste, by adding spices and fruit or leaving the spices and fruit out. They are similar to a cake-like version of English-scones.

Being able to cook for yourself is an important skill to have, if you cant, you are at the mercy of large corporations who put profits ahead of healthy food.

And when our children learn to cook, they have an appreciation of food and cooking and can get off the fast-food treadmill. Giving them skills that allows them to break free of being slaves of large corporations.